Page 37 of Scandalous Lover

The guys all look like they’re about to be lined up and shot.

I can’t help but smile at their reactions. I’ve learned over the years to stay positive in the face of confusion and disapproval. It’s the only reason I’m sitting here right now, considering myself on a break, rather than straight-up fired from my channel.

“One of the things I do a few times a year is rep a big brand who has a launch or some kind of big product promotion. I’ve done content spreads for Sephora, Hilton Hotels, and Uber. Influencer marketing is a huge new area of interest for companies because it’s essentially one friend recommending something to another, and people trust that way more than ads the company makes.”

“But they pay you to post them?” Sam asks.

I smile over at him. “Oh, yeah. They pay a ton for posts where I use their service or stay in their hotel and tell my followers how great it is. For Sephora I got a full in-store makeover and was sent home with all the products to do mirror videos. People watch me using stuff and know they want to buy it.”

“I’ve had brands wanting me to do stuff like that. I don’t check my Instagram messages much anymore, but they’realways full of companies wanting to send me stuff to wear in pictures and whatnot,” Avery chimes in.

I nod to him. “Exactly. So, I was working on a collab with a company called PassionFly, which is one of those clothing box services where you get a package once a month put together by a stylist and get to keep the stuff you like and send back the rest. Their platform was sustainability, which is really big right now with my followers and with my demographic in general, especially in the Austin area. They source from ethical companies, use green packaging, purchase carbon offset credits for shipping?—”

“I’m sorry, carbon offset credits?” Avery asks.

“Ave, she was just getting to the good stuff. Don’t derail her. You can just google that.” Fran moans beside me.

I glance over with a smile. “It’s no problem. I can explain pretty quickly. Imagine every time a company does something that pollutes the air, like flying planes or running factories, it's like they're putting a bunch of balloons filled with bad gas into the sky. To make up for the mess, companies buy what's called ‘carbon offset credits.’ Think of these credits like eco-friendly deeds or actions somewhere else. For example, planting a forest or investing in wind farms that create clean energy. Each credit is like a promise that somewhere, an amount of pollution equal to what the company made will be taken care of, either by sucking it back out of the air or by preventing it from happening somewhere else. So, when companies buy these credits, they're basically saying, "Hey, we made some mess here, but we're helping clean up an equal amount of mess over there." It's like trying to balance the scales to keep our planet enjoyable for everyone. This way, they can work toward being more sustainable and less harmful to the environment.”

Dom laughs, and not in the friendliest way. “Sounds like you’ve rehearsed that one a few times.”

I offer him a tight-lipped smile. I’m still getting used to this guy as a fellow adult, rather than any kind of authority figure in my life, so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. “It’s a concept that a lot of people struggle to grasp at first, so I do find myself explaining it often.”

“It’s hard to grasp because it’s total bullshit,” he bites back.

“Anything could be looked at from alternate angles and be found lacking.” I shrug, meeting his eye at last. This guy is not going to intimidate me. Not tonight. Not with this fancy wine swirling in my veins.

“The actual “sustainable” thing to do would be to not produce the pollution in the first place. Polluting all you want over here and then buying some pollution cleanup over there is not a way to cancel out pollution. The way to cancel pollution would be to not pollute. And pay to clean up other pollution as well. Then you could call yourself sustainable and ethical and not be a complete lying shit.”

As a person who is currently canceled as fuck, I try not to flinch as he throws the word around.

Never let them see your weaknesses.

This man was one of the reasons I grew up with that as my motto.

“Well, it’s the system we have in place, and one that’s widely accepted as being good for the planet.”

“What would be good for the planet is stopping all the shipping and fast fashion in general. If people could buy things from the store in their own town and rewear the same outfit a few damn times, we?—”

Reina slides her arm though Dom’s and pulls him close, using her lips to quiet his ranting. Then she glances at me apologetically. “Sorry. My parents got us a subscription to The Atlantic for Christmas last year and somebody,” she tosses a look at Dom, “is feeling very well informed.”

Dom huffs. “It’s true.”

“Dom, stop. She was just getting to the part about her. You can soapbox later. We want to hear Naomi’s story,” Fran cuts in.

Dom raises his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”

I jump back in, happy to be handed the floor once more. “What you’re saying isn’t totally off base, Dom. There are plenty of people who agree with you one hundred percent. But it’s the best system we have right now, and it provides funding for a lot of great projects that otherwise wouldn’t be able to exist, so we all just go with it.”

Dom looks like he has more to say about that, but he keeps quiet.

“So, PassionFly. There are a lot of these subscription clothing boxes these days, and each one needs to find their niche market in order to be viable. PassionFly went with sustainability and ethically produced clothing. It’s a great idea. Fast fashion is killing the planet, as Dom was saying. So, they got in touch with me a few months ago and it sounded like a good fit. They sent boxes of their upcoming line, and I made unboxing videos and try-on videos with the clothes. I had them all scheduled to start posting at the beginning of this month when the service was scheduled to go live.”

I glance down at my lap, smoothing my hands over my linen shorts, remembering how excited I was when I pulled a similar pair out of my first PassionFly box. All that stuff ended up at Goodwill.

“It was a big jump for me. It was my first ever large-scale company launch. Before that I was just doing sponsored content and posts for existing brands. It looked like the beginning of a long-term relationship between myself and the company, which would have been great for my channel, because everyone would get to see the new clothes before theyhit the site, and I would get boxes of new clothes every month. Pretty great. On top of that, they paid really well.”

“But…” Fran leads me, feeling the climax of my story coming.

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